Gab.ai used to be an island of misfit toys— a website whose user base consisted of white nationalists, nazis and other hate group members that had been banned from Twitter. Recently though, the site closely resembles a ghost town. While the site initially garnered a niche audience, users have been leaving in droves.
“Gab is barely functional,” one user explained to Bernard Media. “You can’t navigate it. I constantly get stuck on loading screens and pop-ups that you can’t minimize. I think that’s a big reason why a lot of people left, it’s just a poorly built product.”
In an effort to save the website and alleviate pressure from investors, founder Andrew Torba has now allegedly created a botnet of accounts posting “pro-Gab” messages. One such account is “Vincent Black,” whose sole post was, “So here I am on Gab, trying things out!” The post was immediately shared by founder Andrew Torba.
Another suspect account brought to Bernard Media’s attention is “Bassman9000.” While the account has been live for years, it only has several posts, all of them encouraging Gab to stay the course. “App is surely growing. Congrats @a,” Bassman sent to Torba, who shared this years old post again last week.
Following the share by Torba, Bassman9000 followed up with another strange pro-Gab message. “Has been a while since I logged in, and the UI has surely improved TONS. Congrats @a and team.” From Bernard Media’s initial analysis, there are no other posts commending Gab’s on the functionality or site design.
Even power users are jumping ship for competitors like, “WrongThink,” frequent Gab users revealed Bernard Media. “I guess the big accounts on Gab now are neo-nazi Chris Cantwell and Andrew Torba, but it’s his platform so that doesn’t count really. The pro-Cantwell memes give you an idea of the content currently being passed around. Other memes and what not are mostly about how the website has been abandoned, mocking Torba.”
It is clear that Gab is in a sad state of affairs. Bernard Media will continue to provide updates on the Pro-Gab botnet, as well as any closure of the site itself. Stay tuned.
